Hooked Fish Feel Pain, British Scientists Say, Roiling the Waters

By ALAN COWELL

Published: May 6, 2003

TEFFONT EVIAS, England, May 4—
On the front line of a watery war, Christian Jervis-Reid braced for the fray, his only weapon a willowy wand of crafted bamboo.

Before him lay the languorous curves of the River Nadder, a slender waterway replete with trout near this old village in the county of Wiltshire, 100 miles west of London. Somewhere, at the back of his mind, were arguments that catching fish was cruel. In front of him, though, was the dimpling of the water that betrayed his prey.

He cast his line. A speckled brown trout rose to his artificial fly. After a brief tussle, the trout was captured, destined for that night's dinner table.

That bucolic moment was one that has been repeated on untold occasions since Izaak Walton, a British writer and fisher, composed ''The Compleat Angler,'' a compendium of lore in the 1650's. But Walton's assessment that ''God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling'' is now under challenge as rarely before.

Eminent scientists have concluded that, despite anglers' longstanding protestations to the contrary, fish do indeed feel pain when hooked. Animal rights activists, who have fought a stubborn campaign against the hunting of foxes, hares and stags, now say they feel encouraged in their insistence that anglers should desist from their pastime.

''While fishing might seem fun, there's a terrified animal fighting for its life at the other end of the line,'' said Dawn Carr of the European branch of the lobby group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

The Royal Society, an independent scientific research body, seems to agree with him. In one of its journals, the society published research last month by Lynne Sneddon establishing for the first time, she said, the existence of nervous system receptors in the head of fish that respond to ''damaging stimuli.''

By injecting bee venom and acetic acid into the lips of captive rainbow trout, the Royal Society said, Dr. Sneddon and other scientists at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh discovered that the fish displayed ''profound behavioral and physiological changes'' over a period of time, ''comparable to those observed in higher mammals.''

After the injections, Dr. Sneddon said, ''fish demonstrated 'rocking' motion strikingly similar to the kind of motion seen in stressed higher vertebrates like mammals, and the trout injected with acetic acid were also observed to rub their lips onto the gravel in the tank and onto the tank walls.''

''This indicates, the researchers believe, that fish can perceive pain,'' the Royal Society said in a statement, contradicting the riverbank lore of anglers drawing on earlier research by Prof. James Rose of the University of Wyoming that fish do not feel pain because their brain is incapable of that response.

Dr. Sneddon said the research did not make her anti-angling. ''I wouldn't say it was cruel as long as the angler is getting the fish out quickly, killing and eating it,'' she said. ''That outweighs the short period of discomfort for the fish.''

She did, however, seem to question the logic used by fishing types to protest her own research. ''A lot of anglers have condemned me for using bee venom,'' she said in an interview. ''If these anglers condemn me for that, they are acknowledging that fish feel pain.''

Under pressure from the dispute are the 3.8 million anglers including Mr. Jervis-Reid, a 55-year-old banker, who make fishing Britain's most popular participatory sport. They cast lures, artificial flies or baits on or below the waters to catch, and often then release, species that range from carp in ponds to mackerel at sea by way of myriad others like roach, tench, bream, dace, pike, grayling, trout and on to the aristocratic Atlantic salmon.

''When you catch a fish, you want to cause it a minimum amount of pain,'' said Mr. Jervis-Reid in a conversation before his latest capture. ''Most good anglers will be very quick about releasing it'' or dispatching it for the pot, he said.

Of course, this being Britain, there are certain connotations of class. Anglers sitting on the banks of lakes and canals casting maggots and other bait for coarse fish like roach or barbel tend to be seen as a blue-collar bunch by those who cast artificial flies for game fish, usually trout or salmon.

But if there is one thing that unites them, it's an animal rights activist. ''You won't get any distinction'' between the various disciplines, said Martin Salter, a Labor legislator who acts as the government's spokesman on angling. ''The anti-fishing lobby,'' he said, ''is a few extreme vegans. It's nothing we take seriously.''

The new research has prompted a chorus of rebuttal echoing through newspaper columns, broadcasts and barroom debate.

''When you hook a fish, the fish always will dash away into the far bank or bore away into the deepest water,'' said Rodney Coldron of the National Federation of Anglers. ''If there was any pain involved, the fish would swim toward the angler to take pressure off the line.''

In more of a scientific vein, Bruno Broughton, a scientific adviser to the pro-fishing lobby, said: ''In our brains there's a neocortex. That's the part of our brain that is associated with pain and fear. Fish don't have that. So if fish are feeling pain, how are they feeling it? With which organ?''

At the back of many anglers' minds is the fear that Britain's militant animal rights movement, which has disrupted fox hunts, threatened scientists performing experiments on animals and blocked exports of calves, may also turn on anglers as they fish.

Two years ago, militants wearing ski masks and wielding baseball bats threatened an angler in Cambridgeshire. Animal rights activists sent a nail bomb to a fish and chip shop in North Wales. Also in 2001, an activist smashed fishing poles and leapt into the murky waters of the River Trent in the English Midlands to protest an angling competition.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals placed a newspaper advertisement the same year, Ms. Carr said, showing a dog with a hook through its lip and the question, ''If you won't do it to a dog, why do it to a fish?''

Photo: Christian Jervis-Reid, 55, fishing the River Nadder in Wiltshire, England. He said most anglers want to inflict a minimum amount of pain on fish. (Photograph by Mike St. Maur Sheil/Black Star, for The New York Times) Map of England highlighting Teffont Evias: The River Nadder at Teffont Evias is replete with trout.